Defensive magic is often overlooked in favor of more aggressive kinds of spells. Banishing, cleansing, and binding are all offensive magics, they are oriented to a specific problem and actively pursue a solution. While these are all excellent skills to learn, I find that defensive magic like warding is equally as vital. As witches, we encounter considerably more potential danger on a spiritual level than the average person.
We spend our time interacting with the magical world, manipulating energies, contacting spirits, and adjusting the weft and weave of reality to suit our desires. As a result, we are in a significantly more vulnerable position. On top of this, contact with other magic users often carries some risk as well. This is not a bad thing. It simply means that we need to be more intentional about protecting ourselves to mitigate the additional risks that we are exposing ourselves to.
You can think of this as similar to any person who chooses a career or hobby with additional risks. Someone like a race car driver or a nurse is exposing themselves to significantly more risks by their choice of profession. Rather than avoiding that profession entirely because of the risks, they take additional safety precautions to ensure that they can pursue their profession in the safest way possible, such as having additional safety helmets and mechanisms built into their vehicle or taking extra precautions with cleanliness and hygiene for a nurse.
Warding and other forms of magical protection are the same. Witches take risks and expose ourselves to potential dangers, yes, but we can be smart about how we mitigate those risks to ensure that we stay safe.
What Is Warding?
Warding is used to create an energetic safe space, it prevents intrusive or negative energy from entering your space thereby lessening the amount of offensive magic that you need to perform. Think of it like the firewall on your computer, it allows only benign files onto your computer and blocks anything malicious. Casting a circle is one of the most common forms of warding, used for protecting magical workspaces, but there are many other forms of warding.
Wards are an extremely versatile form of magic, they can protect a single person or, given enough power, they can extend over vast amounts of space to protect large buildings or even entire towns. They can be semi-permeable, meaning they selectively allow energies through, or they can be completely impermeable, allowing nothing to enter or exit. A ward can be used to keep energies out or to keep them in. Wards are really only limited by the imagination and ability of the witch casting them.
Simple Warding Spells
Warding does not always have to be a big ritual, nor does it have to be something that remains in place indefinitely. There are many simple, quick, and effective forms of warding that can be used for additional protection without a ton of preparation or time spent. For example, a common form of protection and warding at home is planting basil near your front door. Basil is a very protective herb to begin with, especially when it comes to the home, and it can prevent negative energy, malicious spells, and spirits from entering the home entirely.
Another good example would be the use of black salt. You can line your doors and windowsills with black salt to create a rather aggressive form of home protection. This is especially useful if you find yourself suddenly under magical attack.
Another method might be through the use of sigils or servitors, which are a kind of programmed entity or spirit created by the magician or witch for specific purposes. Without getting too deep into the use of servitors, using sigils would allow you to place sigils either on your body for personal protection or on the windows and doors of your home for home protection. For example, you could draw a protection sigil on every window and door of your house using moon water and refresh this on a monthly basis during the same lunar days each cycle, keeping your entire home consistently protected. Likewise, you could draw temporary sigils on yourself for a quick boost of protection.
Creating A Guardian Ward
Now, the home guardian that we’re going to create today is technically a kind of servitor. Again, these are spirits that are created and programmed by the witch for a specific magical purpose. This is not a method that would work for creating other types of servitors, so if you’re interested in that, I would recommend further study. But for our purposes, this is a very simple and straightforward method of creating a spirit whose sole purpose is the care and protection of you, your family, and your home.
If you are worried about the spirit being unhappy about this state of affairs, please don’t be. Servitors are not like people in that they don’t have the level of conscious development to feel negatively about their situation or their purpose. Rather, I want you to think about this like a person finding their purpose in their own life. Being able to align yourself with your purpose in life feels incredibly good. Your home guardian will be happy to perform it’s purpose for you and your home. This is your house guardians entire reason for being!
To start, choose an object to turn into your guardian, I generally like to use something small and decorative looking so that it’s less likely that anyone will pick it up and mess with it. My house ward is a little wooden owl statuette. Start by cleansing and charging your object, then set your intention (ie, protection, perhaps from something specific). Carry your new guardian around the space that you want to be protected while focusing on tying the area to the guardian energetically and visualizing a barrier around the space. Visualize your energy and intention condensing and filling the object until it begins to crystalize into a spirit. You will know you’ve succeeded because when you stop focusing, the spirit will remain and not dissipate or dissolve back into energy. Set the guardian in its permanent spot and activate it, stating your intention aloud and giving it any instructions that it needs to do its job. Make sure it knows who the members of your family, your friends, and your pets are and that it should consider these individuals safe.
The most important thing is to be aware that this ward can and will turn the object you’ve chosen into a sentient energy being. It’s important that you maintain a healthy relationship with it. Regular physical and energetic cleaning and a monthly offering of incense can go a long way to keeping your new house guardian happy and strong. You will have a relationship with this being for a long time and if you treat it with respect and consideration, your spirit guardians can become steadfast companions for life.
If you move, you will need to tell your guardian that you are moving and then repeat parts of this process in your new home. Make sure that the guardian knows that they no longer need to protect the old home and introduce them to their new home the same way you did with the first. It’s also a good idea to give the guardian an offering of incense as soon as you finish, and then once a week for the next month to help them strengthen their ties to the new home.
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Updated on January 26, 2025 by Avery Hart
Hi Avery, I have a few questions, how do you know you have turned your guardian into a sentient energy being and how do you go about giving it offerings? What could go wrong if your guardian turns into a sentient being? what are the pro’s and con’s
Thank you
Hi Aleacia!
For most people you’ll be able to tell when you can hear it "speak" or when it develops a distinct personality. How you recognize either of these things is fairly personal though, you’ll be most likely to perceive the sentience of a home guardian the same way you would perceive any other spirit.
Giving offerings is a matter of preference! Find out what the spirit likes and leave some of whatever that may be (food, drinks, incense, and trinkets are common) near the guardian with the intention that it’s for the spirit.
A guardian spirit is more like a pet than other spirits, it’s attached to a physical object so it relies on you quite a bit. As with any pet, neglect or mistreatment can make it hostile. Treat it well and that’s unlikely to be an issue. There’s also a small chance that it could become overzealous and do it’s job a little TOO well, trying to keep you safe from things that aren’t even threats. If this happens you should be able to fix it with a conversation to establish boundaries.
Hi, Avery, i hope this finds you well. Would you please explain what you mean by "tying an area to the guardian energetically" and what is involved in pulling energy from the earth to create an energy bridge?
Thank you for your time and patience.
Hey Jacqueline!
I actually have a blog post on the subject, you can check it out here >> https://theoccultwitch.com/blog/2016/12/21/pulling-energy-from-other-sources
I hope this helps!
What happens to your guardian if you move?
Take the guardian with you! You can reintroduce the guardian to your new home the same way you did the first time and they will continue guarding you.
Hi! What happens if it does become sentient and you want to respectfully take the ward down? How would someone go about it?
Hello, Avery. I have a question about putting down a sentient ward? Can it be done at all and in a polite way? The ward was created by my mother for our house when I was little, and now I sort of inherited it, but cannot use it for my own house for emotional reasons. Or should I just cleanse the statue and that’s all?
You can’t really unmake a sentient being once made without some rather violent and unpleasant magic. I would suggest having a conversation with this being, see if it would be comfortable going to live with someone else, either someone you know or perhaps leave it up to fate and allow the being to choose a new owner through a resale shop. You can also see if it would rather be untethered from the object so that it can go off on its own. Basically, try to find a solution that makes both of you happy.
Thank you, Avery! Your answer has helped a lot, since I don’t have much experience, and this topic scares me a little. I’ll try my best to get in touch with the being and understand it. Thanks again!
I would like to be the male participator to ward off the negative energy from our house
Hi Avery, is it possible to call upon my old familiar that has crossed over to come be my house guardian? He was the original guardian when he was in the land of the living.
Greeting Avery, I am still very new to witchcraft and learning about it all. For some reason, I am hesitant to start my practice, even just doing small things like warding, because I am a bit apprehensive that I may unintentionally invite “bad” entities. What can I do to make sure I attract good ones, or at least those with good intentions? Thank you so much
I completely understand Madeleine! There’s a lot of unknown that you’re contending with at this stage and it’s easy to get paralyzed with doubt. This is a really common experience. So common, in fact, that I’ve written an entire blog post on exactly this subject >> https://theoccultwitch.com/blog/can-witchcraft-attract-negative-spirits-to-you